The World in Pieces
Page 12
As soon as the door was shut behind us, she broke from her pose and became very animated, doing at first almost all the talking, chattering away, on and on, about God knows what, in a manner that was meant to preclude argument or strong feeling of any kind. A false good cheer she had, very aggressive, and a big fuss she made over the food and even the seating arrangement, as if we were not just six at a family tea but fifty at a formal dinner. Twice she made me get out of my chair and change places, once with Lo Yadua and then once with Anchel.
From this stupid fussiness about where people should sit around such a small table, even a complete psychological moron who is cut off from the whole underside of experience could see that something was maybe not right with her, so Anchel and Surah they saw; you could feel that they saw, but at the same time they refused to acknowledge, and at first they made this very willful effort to see cheerfully, to treat the whole insanity over the seating arrangement and every other crazy thing that Frieda was saying and doing as just perfectly ordinary behavior.
Eventually was brought up the topic of Orsino, but not by Anchel or Surah, as I had feared. Frieda herself she brought up Orsino. This she did with first an apology, saying that she was sorry that her Orsino could not be here, that he would have enjoyed very much this visit with the parents of his best friend. And so at this point I thought, naturally, that she was going to say something about Orsino’s death. But this was not to be, because right away she got this manic look in the eye and she made a flourish with the hand and she said, “But, after all!”
“After all what?” said Cesare warily.
“After all, business is business!”
With this remark then she launched into a whole incredible fairy tale from which you could scream. Orsino, she said, he was traveling at the moment, in Sweden, on a business trip, for a big Tel Aviv company. What kind of company? One that distributes the wonderful oranges and figs of Israel all over the world. And her Orsino he was already a big executive, very importantly positioned, on account of his good looks and quick mind.
As Frieda spun this pathetic fantasy about Orsino, every other minute she flashed a look now at Cesare, now at Lo Yadua, now at me, forbiddingly, as if to say, “If you contradict me on this, not even God will forgive you!”
Now, all this, Frieda’s whole fakery here, this was in line with her original idea from fifteen years ago, that the truth about Orsino might give Anchel and Surah reason to worry whether a similar tragedy were in store for Lo Yadua. In the abstract such a fakery might seem almost reasonable, or at least perfectly human, but given the intensity of affect she exhibited, the whole performance was crazier than you can possibly imagine.
“It sounds as if your Orsino has a wonderful life,” said Surah, when Frieda seemed at last to run out of colorful things to say about the export business.
“Yes, he’s very fortunate,” said Frieda. “And it’s all on account of Israel. I tell you this to put your mind at rest about your own son, so that you can know in your heart once and for all that you did the right thing when you sent him to this marvelous country.”
“Thank you, Frieda,” said Surah. “That’s very good of you.”
“Everything has gone so well for him. And now, as you see, he has even found a lovely wife. Isn’t Ila lovely? Aren’t you proud to have such a daughter-in-law?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And now your son is going to be a Daddy! You see what good fortune he has?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“What’s wrong, Surah? I can see in your eyes something. What? Tell me.”
“Nothing, Frieda. It’s all, I’m sure, just as you say. Only …”
“What? Tell me, Surah!”
“I would wish for my Lo Yadua in life something like what your Orsino has, a more modern sort of job, more sophisticated.”
“No, no. My God, what are you saying, Surah? Your son is the whole heart of the kibbutz, a real hero.”
“Yes, we heard about this already, in the dining hall, about what a hero he is.”
“Why do you use such a tone when you say this word ‘hero?’”
“Calm yourself, Frieda.”
“Answer me. Why do you use such a tone?”
“On account of the killing.”
“Cesare, what’s she talking about?”
“Why are you asking me?” said Cesare. “I never heard a word of this conversation.”
“Ila!” demanded Frieda. “Tell me. You heard.”
“It was nothing, Frieda,” I said. “You know how Rubin is.”
“No, how is he? What did he tell them?”
“The usual,” I said. “The war stories.”
“So that’s it! Listen to me, Surah. This Rubin he’s a big faker. Always telling the war stories. But you want to know the truth? On this kibbutz never have we had one bit of trouble. At perfect peace we are with the local Arabs. So don’t you listen to a word of what Rubin says.”
“But you yourself said that Lo Yadua was a hero.”
“But not a hero for war. A hero for peace! Always he goes among the Arabs to help them with one thing and another. Why are you looking at me suspiciously? Wait. The newspapers. From the newspapers you get stories about the killing. Am I right? Well, listen to me. It is true that elsewhere in Israel there is killing, but here at Bet Lev we live on friendly terms with our neighbors.”
“But why would Mister Rubin lie to us, and why did nobody contradict him? Not even Lo Yadua contradicted.”
“Of course not. Because he’s a gentleman, and he doesn’t want to make a liar out of Rubin and humiliate him in front of others. Am I right, Yaddie?”
“Absolutely,” said Lo Yadua. “I’m a gentleman.”
“You see what your son is telling you, Surah?”
“But, forgive me,” said Surah. “Now I’m so confused!”
“Of course! How could you not be confused when this big faker Rubin is filling your head with nightmares?”
“But why would he lie about such things?”
“You don’t know men yet? All these years with your Anchel, you must know men, how always they look for trouble and misery, which if they can’t find it, they invent it. With nightmares, lies, all kinds of disgusting horrible stories!”
“But my Anchel he’s not like that at all, Frieda.”
“And neither is my Cesare, God bless him. But why are these two not like this? Because they have good women like us to civilize them. If you could have seen how crazy my Cesare was in his youth, you would never believe he could turn into this dependable hard-working gentleman that is sitting here at the table with you. Isn’t that right, Cesare?”
“Absolutely, Frieda darling,” said Cesare. “A good little boy you made out of me.”
“See, Surah? And your Anchel he too was crazy when he was young, wasn’t he.”
“I don’t know about crazy, but very intense, difficult,” said Surah.
“You see? But you civilized him. And now he’s this nice polite smiling man who sits and eats his yogurt and cucumbers with a teaspoon and spreads his jam so carefully on his muffins. A perfectly agreeable marvelous man you made of him, Surah. But Rubin? His wife’s a little mouse, tall like a giant, yes, but with a squeaky little voice, who can do nothing with him. So what can you expect from such a man? Lies and nightmares, that’s all!”
“Well,” said Surah, “so now at least I can understand what Mister Rubin said about Orsino.”
“Rubin spoke about my Orsino?”
“Well, now I think so, yes, but at the time I thought maybe I didn’t hear correctly, and then, I suppose, I forgot it, or anyway didn’t think about it again until just this minute! Isn’t it strange how your own mind can play tricks on you?”
In response to Surah’s question fell a silence like an axe. And I thought, ‘What a stupid woman this is. Can’t she see what’s going on here?’ But what Surah could see or not see nobody knows.
In any case, immediately I held my brea
th, because who could tell what might come from Frieda here?
“So what did Rubin tell you about my Orsino, Surah?” said Frieda, very softly and with such a suspicious look in the eye it could give you a chill.
“Well … he … maybe he was talking about some other Orsino.”
“On this kibbutz there has been only one Orsino, believe me. What did the big faker Rubin say?”
“I don’t like to repeat it,” said Surah.
“Cesare, tell me! What did Rubin say!”
“I can’t help you here, Frieda darling,” said Cesare. “As I’ve already said, I did not hear one word of the conversation with Rubin.”
“Ila! You were there! You tell me!”
“Rubin told her that Orsino was hit by a bullet,” I said.
“And Rubin said this bullet killed my Orsino?”
“Yes, Frieda darling,” I said.
“So! You see what kind of a maniac we are dealing with in this Rubin, who will stop at nothing with his sadistic lies?”
“Why would he do such a terrible thing?” asked Surah.
“Why? Because he is socialist. Like all of them here. Full of hatred for the rich.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think, Surah. My Orsino, he’s rich. You see? With a brand new automobile every year, this year a Ferrari! So Rubin, the maniac, he tells you a socialist dream: that my Orsino he never has a chance to become rich in the first place, that he is murdered in his youth, shot by an Arab from the underclass!”
“But this is incredible.”
“Of course. But it’s only a fantasy, Surah. A nightmare. From a sick brain! Did you taste my cucumbers yet?”
“I had two helpings.”
“Did you ever have such cucumbers in your America? Answer me!”
“Never. They’re wonderful.”
“Then think of them, Surah. Whenever you begin to worry about your Lo Yadua, immediately remind yourself that he is living in a place where can grow such cucumbers!”
With this injunction about cucumbers, Frieda meant obviously to close the subject of Orsino, so naturally we were all relieved, though not completely, because still you knew she could reopen the subject at any moment. In any case, here she stood up and announced theatrically that she had baked a honey cake, and then she marched at once out to the kitchen.
While she was out of the room, none of us dared to talk, because every word in that small house she could hear from the kitchen, which was just a few feet away and with the door open. Then too she was hypersensitive to every little sound, and she had also a very sharp sixth sense, like many crazy people, where she could often detect even what is going on behind her back.
At one point from the kitchen she shouted, “Don’t think I don’t see you rolling your eyes, Cesare. And shrugging your shoulders too!”
And indeed at that moment this was just what Cesare was doing.
Rembrance and Fancy
Now the honey cake. Though this cake it was perfectly ordinary in every respect, we all made a big fuss over it as if it were God knows what kind of culinary miracle.
“So moist!”
“Such raisins!”
“Such a color!”
On and on like this.
Why such a fuss was made is not so hard to understand. All of us we were trying to appease poor Frieda as if she were a demon out of Hell who might at any moment blow maybe fire in our faces. That she was merely a poor frail woman full of grief was a fact easy to forget, because that morning it was one of those episodes with her when you felt too much the unconscious contents.
So, this is what was our fuss over the cake: an attempt to appease. How successful we were, you can judge for yourself.
Now, a revealing little drama happened around this cake. And all I have to do is think of it, and I can see the whole scene again, just as it was.
The Confidence
“So now Anchel and I have something important to tell all of you,” said Surah, placing her fork on the remains of the honey cake after she had eaten maybe half of her portion.
“You’re going to finish your cake, Surah?” said Frieda.
“Yes, Frieda, of course.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s wonderful cake, Frieda. It’s just that I always take a rest in the middle when I’m eating cake.”
“You need a rest from a cake?”
“Yes, well …”
“Such delicacy you have, Surah. Just like an aristocrat! Did you ever hear of such an idea, Cesare?”
“Why not?” said Cesare, somewhat irrelevantly.
“If you take a rest,” said Surah, “the pleasure lasts longer.”
“If you want it to last longer,” said Frieda, “I’ll give you a second piece.”
“Frieda darling,” said Cesare, “let Surah say what she has to say.”
“So who’s stopping her? Go ahead, Surah. Forgive me.”
Here Surah she hesitated, looking at us a little uncertainly.
“All right,” she said, “but first, please, what I’m going to tell you, this is just between the six of us.”
“You’re going to tell us a secret?” said Frieda.
“No. I’m going to ask you to keep a confidence. The secret you already know.”
“This is like a riddle, Surah.”
“Bear with me for two minutes and everything will be as clear as day.”
“Take even more than two minutes. Only relax. And don’t worry. We’re listening to every word.”
“Well then, you see, in America we have some friends, not many, but a few. One couple, the Christophers, they’re our closest. Myra and Bob Christopher. Bob is a CPA, and Myra works part-time as a receptionist in an ad agency. One or two evenings a week they visit us or we visit them and we play canasta. Well, one night, at our apartment, Bob told us he just read a novel, Exodus. Do you know that novel? It’s a book about Palestine, which is the name that Israel was called before it became Israel.”
“We know this,” said Cesare. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we live here.”
“Cesare,” cautioned Frieda.
“I had noticed,” said Surah with a faintly martyred look; but at once she brightened up and continued: “After we had listened to Bob go on and on, telling us about Palestine, suddenly Anchel announces that he and I already know many of these things that Bob and Myra had been hearing about for the first time by reading a book; and the way we knew, Anchel says, is that we had already visited Palestine! And right away he runs to our desk for the photographs we took on our last visit in 1936. Remember, Lo Yadua? Remember when we visited you then?”
“Of course I remember,” said Lo Yadua. “So you showed the photographs to your friends?”
“Yes. And they were especially impressed with the stone-work that Cesare had done. Well, if only they could see what you have accomplished now, Cesare.”
“No doubt they would be very impressed,” said Cesare. “But tell me, Surah, you showed them also a photograph of your son?”
“Yes. With two oranges, one in each hand.”
“And what did they say about him?”
“What could they say? ‘Cute,’ they said. Something like that.”
“So, the big fuss they made it was over the stones, but of Yaddie they only said, ‘Cute.’ Is this right?”
“Is it your opinion, Cesare, that my friends should not admire your stone-work?”
“I don’t have an opinion. I am just trying to understand what is the case. But go on with your story, Surah. We are all on the edge of our chairs to learn what is this secret that we already know.”
Surah said, “For two weeks we did not hear from the Christophers. Five times I called Myra on the phone, but each time she said she and Bob were busy. So I began to worry. And Anchel even he began to worry. So one night we had a talk. What’s wrong with the Christophers? we asked ourselves. And right away we decided that definitely we had offended them. That they had absolutely complete
ly misunderstood our whole innocent excitement over Palestine and had supposed, believe it or not, that we were trying to compete with them! That Anchel and I, the least competitive people in the whole world, were trying to compete! With friends! Can you imagine?”
“Incredible,” said Cesare.
“Isn’t it?”
“Who could imagine that such peace-loving people as you and Anchel would ever try to compete with anyone, specially friends?”
“And that’s not the worst,” said Surah humorlessly. “The worst is that Anchel and I, suddenly we realized that since never before, not in the whole fifteen years of the weekly canasta games, did we show a single photograph of Palestine, or even once mention that we had been there, Bob and Myra were from now on definitely going to think of us as some kind of shady types, completely unreliable, like criminals!”
“Well,” said Cesare, “we can all see from this that you worry a lot about what your friends think.”
Here Surah got a wary look in the eye. “Are you saying that I worry about this too much?” she said.
“I say you worry a lot. That’s all I say, Surah. Anyway even if you do worry too much, nobody can say this is a fault.”
“Too much is always a fault.”
“Is that right? Well, my English is not so good. In Italian too much is sometimes a virtue.”
“I know you’re being ironical here, Cesare.”
“I am?”
“But I’ll let it pass. Because you don’t understand. Can’t understand. In America Anchel and I have nobody, only Bob and Myra.”
“What about family?”
“We see no one in the family, not for the last twenty-five years.”